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Indian Tribe Buys Hard Rock Cafe

The Indian Tribe Seminole of Florida announced it will purchase the Hard Rock Caf? chain from Rank Group, a hotel and casino company, for $965 million. The chain includes 124 cafes branded as the Hard Rock Cafes, 4 hotels also branded Hard Rock, 2 casinos, 2 concert halls called Hard Rock Live and part ownership of 3 other hotels.

The deal also includes the franchises` massive rock-n-roll memorabilia collection including: parts of Jimi Hendrix`s guitar, Elton John`s shoes and Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and Chuck Berry guitars. The chain`s casinos and hotels will be added to the Seminole tribe`s assets that already include 5 Florida casinos. More than 90% of the tribe`s budget is made up of income from its casinos. The Seminole tribe`s population runs close to 3,300 persons living in Florida.

Hard Rock Cafe is a chain of casual dining restaurants, founded in 1971 by Isaac Tigrett and Peter Morton. Their first Hard Rock Cafe opened near Hyde Park Corner in London, in a former Rolls Royce car dealerships showroom close to Hyde Park, where in 1979 they began to cover the walls with rock-n- roll ephemera. There are more than 143 Hard Rock Cafes in over 36 countries at current date, with several more in the works. Hard Rock was most popular in the 1980s when some people engaged in the hobby of visiting as many locations as possible and collecting a Hard Rock t-shirt bearing the Cafe logo and the location name. Pin collecting is an alternative for amassing of memorabilia.